Australian artist Jane Long has created imaginatively surreal compositions by digitally restoring, colorizing, and manipulating black-and-white photos captured over 50 years ago.
The series ‘dancing with costică’ brings together the vintage charm of historic photographs and the whimsical possibilities of digital tools. Jane Long drew images from the archive of costică acsinte — a romanian photographer who, following his time as a documentary photographer during world war I, returned to the city of slobozia and took pictures of its local residents.
“I wanted people to see these figures as real people, more than just an old photograph. Adding colour completely changes our perception of images,” she says. “I wanted to change the context of the images. Photographic practices at the time meant people rarely smiled in photos, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t laugh and love. I wanted to introduce that to the images.”
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